New York Times
Daniel Kim 1950 June 8th
YOUR DAILY FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER
Since 1920
Exclusive Interview with Tennesse
William, the Pulitzer Award Winner!
Thomas Lanier William III, also known as Tennesse William,
is a major American playwright of this century. He received
many top theoretical awards for his tremendous works. His
play, A Streetcar Named Desire has won Pulitzer Prize for
Drama in 1948.
His major play, A Streetcar Named Desire is about Blanche
DuBois, a spinster school teacher who leaves her
hometown for some mysterious reason, lives with her
pregnant sister and her aggressive husband Stanley
Kowalski in New Orleans. Stanely is outraged by Blanche
waste of her family’s inheritance and staying at his house.
Later, he breaks all the fragile illusion that Blanche has and
sends her off to the mental hospital.
Author of A Streetcarn Named Desire,
Tennesse William smoking his Cigaratte.
This interview will focus on what he was trying to achieve
from writing this play. 126
From the book A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennesse William explicitly shown the different role of men and
women. I’ve met him at his house. He was wearing his pajama and was smoking his cigaratte.
“Do you want something to drink?” said Tennesse William.
Unlike his emotional, physical playwrights, he seemed to be very chill and friendly. I’ve asked him a question,
“What were you trying to achieve by writing this play? Was it to indireclty present the sexual discrimination?”
“Well, yes. I wrote this play to deliver the unequal role of men and women.”
I heard about his tragic family relationship. So I asked,
“Is your childhood one of the reason that inspired you to write A Streetcar Named Desire? Were your past
experience used to direct your dramas?”
“Well, I was born in Columbus, Mississippi. My father was a traveling sales man. He was barely home, so for
years, I lived with my gradparents. My father, I would describe him as “man’s man”. He was outgoing, alcholic, a
bousterious man who was close to being vulgar. Unlike my father, my mother was quite, caring, and expressed
her love to us often. Later on, after my father was offered a position in a shoe factory in St.Louis, we moved to
an ugly old building. Since my father didn’t had to travel for salesman, he mostly stayed home. By this, I’ve
found out that, my father really loves drinking and gambling. Sounds similar right? Stanely Kowalski’s
(Protagonist, common husband whose main desire is sexual life and who faces eeverything violently) qualities
were influenced from my father’s.”
Exclusive Interview with Tennessee Williams, the Pulitzer Award Winner!
Daniel Kim 1950 June 8th
YOUR DAILY FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER
Since 1920
“Stanely like you know, he is portrayed as a brutal and violent man within this period in American society. He
has complete control of his household. He is animalistic in his behavior and his sexual desire. To show more of
this, in scene one, Stanely forces his wife to carry bag of red meet. This symbolizes his dominace in his
household. I depicted Stanley as treating his wife’s kindess in a overbearing manner; intimating that Stanely
believes that he obviosuly deserves his wife’s respect and commitment without doing anything sweet back to
her, because he’s a man. He says
“Be comfortable is my motto,”.
This shows that disregard the result, he does anything he wants. If you’ve read my play, well you probably did
since you’re interviewing me, Stanely undresses himself infront of Blanche (Stella’s sister). This delivers the
message that he doesn’t care whether if other people are feeling uncomfortable or not. The only thing that
Stanely considers is not his wife, he only concerns about himself. And like I said above, the character Stanely is
similar to my father. Man’s man. I demonstrated Stanely’s overwhelming authority while he plays poker with his
friends. He expresses his dominance during the game
“Nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips, and whisky.”
Williams said that Stanely’s belief is preeminent. So I said,
“So you’re saying that he doesn’t allow any room for further discussoin when he’s with friends right? Thus, he’s
appealing his monolithic figure to everyone in the play. Hmm… how did you demonstrate female’s role?
“I used Stella, to demonstrate female’s role during this period of time. She’s an respecful, obedient wife. She’s a
representative of Americans women. She’s an typical women that is suppressed by husbands. Stella is almost
like a cleaner of the house rather than a wife. She’s mostly inside the house throughout the whole play. Her
character is vanquished througut the play by the names that she gets called. If you look at the play, rather than
Stella getting called by her name Stella, she’s usually called as baby, honey, and etc. In romantic movies or
plays, these names are used with full of love. However, in my play, it’s used to show the feminine struggle. The
reason that her name is not called often is to present that her name is not used for her identity. I was trying to
deliver the message that she is just marqued by condescending and devalueing labels, her outstanding
individuality is restrained. She’s also occasionally looked down because of Stanely’s aggressiveness. There’s this
section where Stanely asks Stella to clean the table,
Daniel Kim is a reporter that graduated Princeton University majoring English literature. He has worked for New York
“(He hurls a plate to the floor. ) That’s how I’ll clear the table! Don’t ever talk that way to me!” 457
Times for 4 years and it’s well known for interviewing famous writers and asking what they were trying to achieve by
writing the play/novel.
When he says this, in the play, Stella remains consistent and do what she was doing. This was done on purpose
so that it can further explain how the role of men and women were inequal. Stella can’t make decisions, Stanely
makes all the decisions and Stella has to follow his decisions.”
In short, he summarized his explanation and said that he wanted to show how unfair the society was right now
to women. Even when women roles had gotten better after World War II.
I personally think that he dealt well with gender problems. It could’ve been a hard topic to raise but he using
dialogues, stage directions, demonstrated the sexual discrimi nation less offensivley to society and clearly stated
that women deserve better than what they’re deserving right now.